


Company We Keep

by convexity



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Book 2: A Clash of Kings, M/M, Sansa is too young to wed Theon here it's more of a planning ahead thing, eventual underage betrothal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-27
Updated: 2017-07-27
Packaged: 2018-12-07 13:29:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11624523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/convexity/pseuds/convexity
Summary: “I will never send you away for true. You belong by my side. I belong by yours. You belong here, Theon.”





	Company We Keep

**Author's Note:**

> This is a scenario I came up with trying to fall asleep and I hope it makes enough sense to suspend your disbelief and enjoy it. I have been out of the game for a long time!

     Smoke from last night’s fires still hung about the camp, stinging his eyes and smelling of pitch. The clouds pressed low over his head, spitting drizzle that reminded Theon of Pyke and kept his clothes damp and uncomfortable. Robb had called him to his tent. He had only just left, to break his fast in his own tent, and he wondered what could have transpired whilst he had a sip of bitter nettle tea and a mouthful of watery oats.

     He stonily avoided the eyes of the guards posted at Robb’s tent. He had returned from Pyke without his father's ships or his blessing, instead with news of Asha’s plan to take Deepwood Motte. They still looked at him sidelong like he had joined his family and stabbed their king in the back when in fact he had remained loyal to Robb. Maybe he did turn his cloak in a fashion, but not against Robb. It didn’t seem to matter. He gritted his teeth and slipped in the tent.

     Robb was fully clothed and crowned, his direwolf lying at his laced boots. Half an hour ago he had been full of sleep, bare shouldered and with mussed auburn hair in the half-light of morning. “Your Grace,” Theon nodded a bow, and Robb nodded back warmly.

     Lady Catelyn only slipped her gaze over him, down to his boots and back up to his face. She remained behind the table while her son walked around to Theon. _What is this?_

“Theon,” Robb started, moving to hold him by his shoulders at arm’s length.

“We are trading the Kingslayer for my sister after all.” Theon nodded with relief. So that was the news. He didn’t know what to expect. Part of him had been afraid he was being sent away, and as much as it annoyed him to confront it, he would rather be at Robb’s side. He deserved to be at Robb’s right hand. He had turned his back on his _family_ for it.

“I am glad Sansa will soon be safe.” Theon said stiffly and managed a glance at Lady Catelyn who remained, hands clasped, behind the table. “Surely she will not be escorted to… to Winterfell?”

“No, Winterfell is still too dangerous now while I am away with my northmen. If Deepwood Motte had been to fall...” Robb released Theon’s shoulders. “But I have you to thank for that knowledge, Theon.”

Theon might have basked in the evergreen glow of Robb’s praise but for the icy chill rolling from his mother not six feet away. He pushed away the thought of Asha in her longship, sailing swiftly for the north. _‘I’ve always wanted a castle.’_

 _Had it been anyone else I would have done it, and taken a castle for my own. A little longer and I would have my father’s respect. Even Asha would know what I can do_. But he could not do it to Robb Stark. Not in the end, though over an endless night he had watched a candle shrink to nothing pondering the thought.

“ Sansa will join the camp, to be here, with us. A war camp is not ideal but she will be protected.” Robb chewed his lower lip, the gesture of a boy Theon knew well, but it looked oddly childlike under that crown. There was something more.

“What is it, Your Grace?” Earlier that morning, just an hour ago, he had called the king Robb, and the king had tucked his curly head into Theon’s neck and muttered about a few more moments of sleep.

“Theon, I need someone I can trust to oversee the transfer… To bring my sister home to us.” Theon could have asked who he was considering, but by the dismayed look on Lady Catelyn’s face, he already knew.

 

* * *

      Later they discussed it just the two if them. Candles burned golden in the tent. Noises of the camp still surrounded them, men and horses, tack and steel and cooking gear, muffled by thick cloth. They sat on Robb’s bed, which was more comfortable than a camp-bed had any right to be. The luxuries that were afforded the King’s tents embarrassed him, but his mother assured him his lodgings were modest, and the others that called themselves king were much more pillowed in their encampments.

“Theon, what I said before was only the first part of a… a two-part decision.”

“I’m a bit old to be a ward in King’s Landing, and I think Joffrey would just cut my head off anyway..” Theon lamely joked, but he was nervous about what Robb was going to say, Robb could tell. He always made a death-by-beheading joke when he was nervous. _No small wonder, the threat was dangled over him like a warrant for a decade._ Theon had eagerly accepted the task of retrieving Sansa, and Robb was nervous to tell him the other portion of his plan. He was nervous to tell everyone, in fact.

Theon needed to hear it first.

“You and Sansa are to be wed.” He said quietly, and watched realization move across Theon’s angular face like a shadow.

“Your Grace…” Theon muttered. Robb closed his eyes.

So much had been put on Theon, and he had always sided with Robb. Robb admired Theon when they were boys and loved him now that they were grown. He felt Theon’s loyalty was something that had been won slowly, considering the boy was his father’s own ward under threat of death. Robb would not betray it.

“It would be an honor.” Theon said. His eyes were fixed on some point of dirt floor of the tent.

“Are you Your-Gracing me or do you mean it truly?” Robb asked, ducking to search Theon’s eyes. He reached a hand and caught under the elder boy’s chin, turning his face toward him. Theon was difficult and teasing with everyone else, but to Robb he offered no resistance. Sansa was beautiful and highborn, but Robb and Theon had grown intimate to a point where it might seem an odd thing, to ask him to wed his sister.

“I have told no one about this. Not my bannermen, not my mother.” Theon huffed softly at the mention of Lady Catelyn, who was cold to him as ever despite all he had done.

“Our houses need to be bound by marriage, and I know you would take care of my sister. You would be betrothed until she comes of age, and when the war is won you can take your rightful place in the Iron Islands. As a Lord or a King or.." Theon visibly flinched in annoyance at the mention of an ironborn king, yet Robb was willing to give him a crown, if he asked it.

Robb had intended to make his announcement kingly, offering no room for argument, but he had no desire to force anything on Theon.

Quietly, he added, “You can tell me no, and I will never speak of it again.”

He would save his kingly resolve for his mother. His mother would not like this, he suspected. Robb knew all she wanted was what was best for him and his newly acquired kingdom, but couldn’t she see that’s what Theon wanted too? She was as suspicious of Theon as if her son had befriended a venomous snake.

Theon looked at him of his own accord then, and Robb dropped his hand from under his chin.

“I used to hope that your father would marry me to Sansa one day.” Robb answered the small confession by taking Theon’s hand. He was rewarded with a small squeeze.

“He never would have, because everyone mistrusts me.” He gestured widely as if to implicate all the camp. Robb rubbed his thumb along the back of Theon’s hand. He couldn’t deny it, it was plain. Some liked him well enough but most of them hadn’t seen the Theon he got to see.

Robb knew much of what happened on Pyke. First, Theon had sent him ravens telling of the important matters. Balon’s disdain for Robb, whom he called the boy king, the young pup. The plans for taking Winterfell, which he had, he hoped, prevented since. It wasn’t until Theon came back to him that he knew the extent of the Pyke trip, that Theon had been given a ship to captain and raid northern villages. He knew Theon had always wanted to Captain a ship. Of course he did, he was Ironborn. And yet he turned it down.

Theon was very stoic about it, but Robb could smell his wounded pride as well as the hurt of such a sneering, cold reception. It made Robb angry at Balon Greyjoy, and Theon’s sister. They should count themselves lucky to have a brother and son in Theon. Then, he realized, he should count himself lucky that Theon came back to him. Theon took the slight and swallowed it down, came back when he knew Robb’s bannermen would scoff and elbow each other as he walked into their camp having failed his mission.  Robb had expressed his gratitude as well as he could without Theon getting flushed and stopping him.

Theon sighed wearily and laid his head on Robb’s lap. It was usually the other way around, and Robb felt his heart tug at the vulnerability Theon gave to him. He moved a hand into Theon’s soft dark hair.

“If Sansa will have me, I would be honored to marry her.” He finished after a moment. “I would protect her always and make her a happy as I could. May I ask for her hand first? I would hate to think she was miserable with the match.”

“Of course.” Robb assured him. Theon rose and kissed him. The day he had returned from Pyke Robb smelled the sea on him, briny and wistful. Now he smelled of fir trees and woodsmoke, like everything and everyone in camp. Yet there was still a hint of _Theon_ , the way his mouth tasted and scalp smelled that made Robb feel like grabbing fast to the other boy and not letting go, ever.

Robb felt strong, slender fingers in his hair and closed his eyes, setting aside the crown long enough to be himself for a little while. Just a little while.

“My only regret is sending you away from my side again, so soon after you’ve returned to me.” Robb whispered into Theon’s jaw between kisses.

“One grows used to it.” Theon shrugged longsufferingly, in jest, but there was a hurt to it underneath the self deprecation. Robb gladly took the bait, took both sides of Theon’s face in his hands and kissed him gently.

“I will never send you away for true. You belong by my side. I belong by yours. You _belong_ here, Theon.”

Theon shuddered almost imperceptibly, and Robb knew that the affirmations were lapping the wounds Theon tried to cover with humor and puffed up pride.

Robb was kissed back again, warmly. They had to be quiet in the camp, but that only added a thrill. Theon cupped Robb in his hand and squeezed lightly.

“Your Grace,” he whispered teasingly against Robb’s ear, sending chills up his right side.

“Don’t.” Robb smirked, letting Theon pet him through his smallclothes and kiss down his neck.

“My sweet king, what’s this? What ever will we do with you?” Robb had to stifle a moan, and Theon reached out to snuff the bedside candle with two fingers.


End file.
